With its exhibition “The Eighth Square”, Museum Ludwig is venturing to the furthest fringes of sexuality. This will be the first time that artists’ approaches to marginalized sexuality have received such a comprehensive showing. The exhibition includes over 260 works from more than 80 artists, giving a broad overview of transsexuality, homosexuality and intersexuality, transgender, gender-crossing, drag and cross-dressing in art. ___ The title “The Eighth Square” comes from a rule in of a free, deregulated sexuality. ___

“The Eighth Square” traces out the desire to transmute into another sex and toy with gender ascriptions. And this highlights the fact that sexuality - especially when outside the norm - is a matter of trembling and transmuting, of passion and power, seduction and sadness, misery and magnificence. But the exhibition also recalls the social and political struggles through which sexual self-determination had to and still must be wrested - and often precisely by artists. For art alone allows the subject to be experienced in all its fascination. Not only does it permit a riskfree game with gender and forbidden desires, but it alone can encompass all the contradictions. What does this mean for divergent desires ? What does it mean after liberalisation, in a world standardized to death ? How does this world look to feminine men and to masculine women ? ___ The nine sections of the exhibition extend over several floors of the Museum, combining a strong documentary accent with great erotic charm and artistic quality